S1 impressions?

[basehead617]

From some other threads it appears some people
have already received their S1. Any first impressions of it? Quality of faders? Ease of setup? comparison to S3/4/6 if you’ve used them? How well the tablet works with it?

etc.

[ramonetl]

Originally Posted by basehead617

From some other threads it appears some people
have already received their S1. Any first impressions of it? Quality of faders? Ease of setup? comparison to S3/4/6 if you’ve used them? How well the tablet works with it?

etc.

Its a really nice piece of gear and construction is great. Its quiet and faders are smooth. The oled displays even have screen savers and I love that it adopts the color of the channel strip. Once I recover from the costs of the holidays and other stuff I may get a second one. I am very happy with mine though I have barely touched it yet and have not configured any softkeys etc. I am just running it as basically a mixer with meter display til i get more time to dig into the manual and its features etc.

[brianpaturalski]

Pretty great so far! I've mostly mixed with a mouse over the years and tried out an artist mix/raven and a few other lower budget controllers, but never really clicked with them. I figured I'd try out a couple of S1s with a dock since the price seemed right.
The faders seem exactly the same as the dock fader and get the job done - they're not as smooth as a high budget console, but I have no trouble nudging up parts in 1/10 of a dB increments. The eq/dynamics section/etc switches work great - it's very quick to pull up an eq/compressor/send. The values spill out over the two units so I can have up to 16 knobs to control an eq which brings up pretty much everything. One difference from the dock is that the knobs have a much looser feel - there's a resistance to the knobs on the dock which took some getting used to, but which is absent from the S1 knobs. Both seem to get the job done though.
As far as tablets, I went with a couple Fire 10" tablets and they stay synced up really well. It's nice to see the eq curves and just a big splash of color near the track name to keep aware of where you are in a big session. I think I may swap out with some 12" iPads at some point as having the tracks and meters line up would be a little more elegant when working quickly. Occasionally I grab the wrong track.
Overall build quality seems great and the magnetic link up is pretty cool - my only complaint is that one of my "flip" button was labeled wrong on one of the units.

-Brian

[basehead617]

Originally Posted by brianpaturalski

The eq/dynamics section/etc switches work great - it's very quick to pull up an eq/compressor/send. The values spill out over the two units so I can have up to 16 knobs to control an eq which brings up pretty much everything.

Thanks for mentioning this specifically! I was wondering if the controls split out across multiple units. That's a huge bit of news to me.

Thank you both for the comments.

[dalonso66]

Originally Posted by brianpaturalski

my only complaint is that one of my "flip" button was labeled wrong on one of the units.

-Brian

Wow, you mean someone at assembly put the wrong button on?

[EddieJones]

Originally Posted by brianpaturalski

my only complaint is that one of my "flip" button was labeled wrong on one of the units.

-Brian

Please send me a personal message with a pic of this button ?

[reichman]

For the S1 users out there: with (2) S1s, can you perform VCA Multi-Master Mode? I love that feature on S3 and it wasn't clear to me if that would carry over.

[sjgam]

I am really impressed with it. I have the Dock and traded in my Artist Mix for the single S1.

My initial reactions moving from Mix and Dock to S1 and Dock are:

1. Look and feel - I did not mind the Mix with Dock but the look and feel and fit of S1 with the Dock is so nice - the big flat Solo and Mute buttons allign with Dock and the overall chassis matches of course perfectly with it making it look and feel like one unit. It looks more modern than the Mix design-wise and faders and knobs and faders and overall construction have a solid feel to them.

2. Select and Record Buttons Placement - finally above faders - no accidental touches and easy to get at

3. Narrower than Mix - feels more compact in a good way even though it has more depth - the buttons at top beside Surface shift button make a lot of sense. So narrow that maybe I could consider a second S1 :)

4. Meter Display - the star of the show I think with upgrade from Mix - didn't realize I wanted that feature but makes so much sense now its there - and the slave feature where the bank and nudge move the surface tracks and the meter display is killer. So odd now in a day or so to go back to Artist Mix without these integrated meters. Now my desktop display is exclusively for track arrangement view. And use Dock display for Channel and Soft key display and keep my eyes on meters above the faders where they should be.

5. Color Soft Keys - so useful to have physical buttons there and I think I will use the 8 with shift for track assignment selection - again perfect (like the S3) that track assignment button placement on the actual mix surface than going to Dock tablet. Cool the colors match track type - still getting use to that fact and sure as I start to embrace it will help my workflow. Combined color display and customizable soft key placed right under faders for easy access and view was well thought out on such a compact surface.

6. Easy slick setup - maybe kind of geeky but I think its so cool that you open the Avid Control on second tablet and then in Eucon Settings Surfaces, you just drag the second instance of Control app onto S1 and it becomes meter display. And starting up after Meters display for S1 and Master Control for Dock just automatically happens on start up. Playing around with it I could close apps on both tablets and reverse which one was meters and which one was master for Dock. I also played with ipad, Fire and my iPhone. All easily exchanged for the other. Some thought went into the logic for this auto-recognition to happen with Dock and S1's and multiple tablets. Very cool.

Some improvement/subjective reaction notes:

1. Dock and S1 Encoder Different Movement - while they look exactly the same the S1 encoders are more looser to turn than the Dock encoders. i had got use to the tight Dock movement resistance and did not like how loose the Mix movement was nor the feel of the encoder material. I could get use to the looser S1 feel but some thought should have gone into matching both of them - either tight or loose - but the same. Both have the same rubbery quality surface to them just the turning action resistance is different.

2. Same functionality as Mix - this might be a positive depending on how you look at it but the functionality - assigning inputs, inserts, sends, editing etc - is exactly the same as the Mix. Again perhaps the thought is why change something that works well and its more driven at the Eucontrol software level I suppose than the physical S1 surface. And I dont have any ideas on what would change and again its easy to get on with moving from Mix to S1 because its the exact same functionality. I imagine this is also purposeful so a S4 and S6 user going to home office can transition to S1 easily because of the same functionality And again the stars are the displays, better construction/feel and soft color keys which are different than Mix.

3. Tablet fit/size - realms into personal opinion but it looks like it was designed for the iPad Pro 12.9 - faders align and outside edges fit. But that is an expensive option and the height might cause fit issues on physical desk. To me the other smaller tablets look a bit clunky - not one integrated whole - kind of placed on the stand and do not align with faders or edges. Given its a meter bridge (very nice comprehensive meter bridge) it seems made for a 11 inch wide and 6 inch-ish height - but such a tablet does not exist. Again this is very subjective - my observations. Perhaps the S1 community will unearth a tablet thats economical, works with Avid Control and aligns with faders and edges of S1.

[YYR123]

Nice write up, thanks

[creativecontrol]

Greetings,

The Multi-Master mode for VCA's is specific to the S3, however there are numerous workflows for accessing and spilling VCA Masters from S1, Dock and the Avid Control app.



Jeff

Originally Posted by reichman

For the S1 users out there: with (2) S1s, can you perform VCA Multi-Master Mode? I love that feature on S3 and it wasn't clear to me if that would carry over.